by Dragonlance
“Broken,” he said. “Like me.”
“But still powerful,” Shedara said, settling it between his collarbones. “They’ll protect us from the Maws, keep their minds out of ours. We wore them when we rescued you.”
Eldako looked at the opal, then up at her. “When do we leave?”
Now, Forlo wanted to say. We should have left long ago. My wife, my son … and the statue too—if all isn’t lost yet, it will be soon.
He kept his silence, though. He’d already resolved to head east alone if there were any more delays. He caught Eldako watching him. The understanding in the merkitsa’s good eye haunted him. The wild elf knew exactly what he was thinking. There was shame on his ravaged face. Rescuing him might have cost them more time than they could afford to lose.
“I am ready now,” Eldako said and started pushing himself up.
Shedara blocked him, forcing him back down. “No, you’re not,” she said. “You still need rest. Besides, it’s sunset now. The cha’asii won’t leave until tomorrow.”
“The morning, then,” Eldako said. “First light, we set forth. I will keep pace with you, I promise.”
“We know you will,” Hult said. He bowed his head, his hair hanging down almost far enough to cover his eyes. There were streaks of gray in it, though he was the youngest of them all; the road had been hard. “And if you have trouble keeping up, I will carry you.”
“My thanks,” Eldako said. “You are all better friends than I have ever known. I would be dead if not for you.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Shedara said. “You’d be back in the Dreaming Green if it weren’t for us. Certainly not down here. You owe us nothing.”
She bent down and kissed his forehead, heedless of the puckered scars on his skin. At that gesture, Hult leaned forward and laid a hand on Eldako’s shoulder. Forlo followed suit, touching the merkitsa’s knee.
Eldako looked at them all, smiling.
Dawn found the tree town already awake, dusty green-gold light lancing through the trees onto platforms and bridges alive with activity. A band of nearly a hundred cha’asii—nearly every able-bodied adult left in Ke-cha-yat—had gathered in the main square, beneath the Grandmother’s hut. They were clad in leather breech-clouts and feathered headdresses, silver armbands and disk-shaped earrings, their faces painted to resemble jungle cats and serpents. They wore bows and quivers of long arrows, blowguns and sheaths of poison-tipped darts, spears and clubs edged with obsidian, and shields of woven bamboo.
A phalanx of minotaur warriors, properly kitted and well rested, could have chewed through them in minutes, Forlo thought as he looked out over the war band—but appearances were deceiving. He had fought in the jungle before; warriors there didn’t fight face-to-face, or with what the League’s soldiers considered a code of honor. And the jungle itself took its toll, through heat and sickness. Steel armor was a liability, not a help. Heavy weapons got snagged in trees and brush. Men fell into sand-water and sank forever or forgot to check their boots and died screaming when scorpions stung them. He’d seen entire divisions fall to enemies they never even glimpsed. That had been in Syldar, a hundred leagues away, but he had no reason to doubt the fierceness of the cha’asii.
Each of them also wore one more protection: a talisman matching the ones Yu-shan had given to him and his friends. These were the last such charms left in Ke-cha-yat; either the elves would defeat the Maws, or they would vanish from Neron altogether.
“It feels strange,” said Hult. The Uigan stood by his side, one hand on his sword, the other touching his twin amulets, Nalaran’s and Yu-shan’s. “To have a horde again.”
“Not exactly the riders of the Tamire, though,” Forlo said wryly.
The barbarian shrugged. “The horses would have had trouble with this terrain, anyway.”
Forlo clapped the young man’s shoulder. “At least we’re on the same side this time.”
“The right side,” Hult agreed. “We will pray for victory, each to our own gods. With luck, someone will hear us this time. I look forward to meeting your wife, my friend.”
Your people would have killed Essana if they’d caught her, Forlo thought grimly. They’d have thrown her from the walls of Coldhope or chased her on their horses until one speared her on his lance. But he kept that idea to himself.
Instead, he turned at a sound behind him and bowed his head. Eldako was limping down from his sick hut, Shedara holding his arm. The wild elf was in constant pain, his face creased with the effort of moving at all. With his burns, he looked like a wax sculpture, left too close to a fire. The cha’asii fell silent, signing circles in the air to ward against whatever devils might still hang over him.
Forlo shook his head. This was foolish. The merkitsa would only slow them down. He was in no condition to fight. But Shedara would not to leave without him, and the elf refused to be left behind. And Yu-shan insisted that they must be four.
Forlo glanced to the east, out through the treetops. Even from the town’s highest vantage, the temple of Akh-tazi was too far away to be seen, beyond the horizon, and two horizons beyond that, according to the elves. That made a hundred leagues of hard travel through the jungle. Even with the cha’asii to guide them, it would be almost a fortnight before they reached their destination.
Please, he thought. Starlight, just stay alive long enough for me to reach you.…
“Your wife still lives, my friend,” Eldako said as he hobbled up to them. “I don’t know how I know—perhaps I felt her mind through the Crawling Maws, while they held me captive—but I am sure of it. She lives and yearns for you.”
Forlo felt tears rush to his eyes and blinked them away. He nodded, making an inarticulate sound in reply.
Above, something stirred. They turned to watch as the Grandmother emerged from her hut, clad in a cloak of shimmering green scales, a plume of snow-white feathers rising high above her head. Her women supported her as she started down the stairs. The cha’asii fell silent, touching their lips in reverence, then parting to let her pass. She approached a dais in the platform’s midst. Her attendants helped her step up onto the platform, but did not follow. Alone, as fragile as bird bones, she tottered to the center of the dais. Her people looked on, silent.
“A time of reckoning has come to the Emerald Sea,” she spoke, sweeping her hand to encompass all the jungle. “For twenty generations of our people, we have held the truce with our enemies. Even through the Destruction and the Second, we held the peace and did not fight the akitu-shai.
“That time is now ended. The peace was broken with Gloomwing’s coming, and again with the Faceless. Now all rests on you, my children. The Maws must be destroyed, and their masters with them, just as you defeated the dragon himself.”
All eyes on the platform rose to the giant skull that loomed high above Yu-shan’s platform. It leered down at them, glistening white, dull black sockets where red eyes had smoldered. The cha’asii beamed. So did Eldako. He hadn’t seen what remained of Gloomwing until now, and his pleasure at seeing the wyrm’s remains was as plain as the scars on his face.
“Let my blessing, and your ancestors’, be upon you all,” Yu-shan spoke. “Their spirits will guide you to victory. The plague of the Maws will be ended, and at last, these forests will be ours … and ours alone.”
“Victory!” cried the elves. “Glory to the wood-folk! Death to the mind-killers!”
Spears punched the air. Fists rose. Feet stamped. Somewhere, unseen hands pounded on drums. The cha’asii settled into a hopping dance, shouting victory over and over. All through it, they kept their gaze on Yu-shan, adoring her.
The Grandmother raised her hands. The air trembled, and even Shedara shied back. The power the old crone drew down was tremendous, almost as much as Forlo had felt when the wall of water obliterated Chovuk’s horde. It filled the air, making it sluggish, like the damp that ruled the jungle below. And, like the damp, it could not be contained forever. It had to burst forth, had to rain.
&nbs
p; The power revealed itself first as a golden flare, high above the Grandmother’s head, then blossomed outward, forming a glowing nimbus that spread through all of Ke-cha-yat. It crackled and sizzled, giving off waves of heat. Forlo felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand erect as it flowed above him, and Hult bit the heel of his hand, an automatic gesture to ward against evil.
Finally the wave of power stopped, shifting and shimmering, rumbling like faraway thunder. They all stared up at the glowing sky—and the storm broke.
Golden motes exploded from the aura, pouring down on the cha’asii. The motes flickered as they fell, leaving trails of yellow flame, but they didn’t burn when they struck the elves. Instead they burst with a chorus of loud snaps, their glow persisting in the air, leaving blue ghosts behind when Forlo blinked. He felt a few strike him, then many more. He expected a jolt, pain, something—but there was only a moment’s warmth and a stranger feeling, a tightening in his muscles that increased with every touch. He shivered, feeling energy flow into him, strength he’d never had before. Glancing over, he saw Hult flex his arm in wonderment, and Shedara nod in approval. Even Eldako looked sturdier, standing tall and proud despite his ghastly wounds.
The last golden raindrops fell. The nimbus disappeared. The cha’asii returned their gaze to Yu-shan.
“You are mighty, my people,” she said. “The power of the ancestors lies in your bones. Go, now—to Akh-tazi, and let none stop you!”
The elves cheered, raising their spears again. Invigorated by the Grandmother’s spell, Forlo cheered with them, hope overcoming his despair.
Starlight, he thought, I’m coming at last.
Chapter
30
THE EMERALD SEA, NERON
Left on their own, Hult knew he and the others would be lost within a day. The jungles were unlike any place he had ever known, even more frightening than the Dreaming Green. Having lived most of his life on the open, golden grasses of the Tamire, he found the riot of greenery and closeness of the trees as alien as the bottom of the ocean. Nowhere he looked could he see more than a dozen paces ahead—usually much less. In places the growth became so thick, they had to use swords to cut through the tough vines, creepers, and shrubbery that clawed and scratched at their flesh. The air felt thick, so heavy with water it was hard to breathe, and the frequent, violent rain showers did nothing to relieve the relentless heat.
The nights were even worse. The cha’asii slept soundly, but this was their home. The rest of the group found only skittish rest, constantly jumping at growls and shuddering moans from the dark. When dawn came, they were still tired from the night before. Fortunately, these strange woods provided even for that: the cha’asii gave them leaves from a black-barked tree and told them to chew. Hult was leery at first, particularly at the bitter taste, but once he started, he found new energy flowing into him. The leaves, which the elves called ulashu, reminded him of the yarta root his people ate before battle. But yarta only worked for so many days before a rider became immune to its effects. Hult hoped the ulashu were more potent, because he didn’t think he would sleep through a single night while he was in the Emerald Sea.
The war band moved at a slog, sometimes traveling so slowly it seemed not to make any progress at all. Distances a rider could have devoured in an hour on the Tamire took a whole day to cover. The ground rose into steep, rocky hills, slick with rotting leaves, or dove into gorges where white rivers thundered; these they had to cross by felling trees and inching across the moss-covered trunks. Even worse were the lowest depressions of the land, where the ground grew so boggy it felt as if they might fall in and drown. Indeed, one time Forlo got stuck in a pit of mud that tried to suck him under; it took Hult, Shedara, and three cha’asii hauling on a vine to haul him out again. The air was thick with biting flies, glistening blue and violet in the sunlight—and they were only the least of the jungle’s nuisances. There were also spiders the size of small dogs, scorpions with red skulls on their shells, massive black jungle cats that had to be driven away with much shouting and clashing of spears, and snakes so large Hult could scarcely believe his eyes. Once, he saw a serpent that had to be thirty paces long, which had pulled a deer up onto a low-hanging branch and was swallowing the animal whole.
Twelve days passed. Hult had no idea where they were anymore. It seemed this accursed wood might go on forever. Sooner or later, the jungle would defeat them. And it would take Eldako first.
Even with the strengthening spell Yu-shan had cast, the wild elf was suffering. Eldako started each morning walking on his own, but by midday he began to stagger, and sunset found him leaning hard on one of his friends—usually Shedara, but Hult and Forlo helped as well. His face was pale beneath its war paint, and though he refused to speak a word of complaint, they could all tell how much his wounds pained him.
“Why is he even with us?” Hult murmured to Forlo on the twelfth evening, watching while Shedara helped the merkitsa swallow water from a hollow gourd. “He can’t shoot a bow. He can lift a sword, but we both know he can’t fight. We should never have brought him on this journey.”
Forlo nodded then sighed. “I know. I think the same thing every time he stumbles. But he thinks he still has a part to play—and the Grandmother seemed to agree.” He flinched and looked away into the night when Eldako’s scarred face turned toward them. “Maybe he’s wrong about that … but who’s going to tell him? We didn’t let him come along. He chose to. And as long as he’s not slowing us down too much, I’ll respect that.”
Hult grunted. “Can he still feel your woman’s mind?” he asked. “Is she still alive?”
“He hasn’t said. And I haven’t asked.”
They were close now; they could all feel it. In two days they would come to Akh-tazi—the elves had told them as much, reading whatever invisible clues they used to tell where they were in this nightmare land. The only thing that kept Forlo going was the belief that his wife still lived. He couldn’t risk knowing the truth now; if he was wrong, he would fall apart.
Hult had never met Essana of Coldhope. After all this time with her husband, though, he knew she must be a remarkable woman. He hoped he would have the chance to know her. He said nothing of this to Forlo, though—only clapped his friend’s shoulder and lay down, staring at the branches above and waiting for sleep that wouldn’t come.
They had just stopped for a rest at midday the next day when several elves, who had gone on to scout ahead, stepped suddenly out of the bushes and spoke in hushed tones with Le-nekh, the warrior in charge of the band. There was a great deal of gesturing, but Hult couldn’t hear more than the occasional word.
One, however was akitu-shai.
“Trouble?” he asked Le-nekh when the scouts had finished. “Are there Maws near?”
The elf looked at him, his painted face stern. “Very near. Akh-tazi is only two valleys away. We are in their land now. A party stands in our way. And … they are not alone.”
“What is it?” Forlo asked, a hand on his sword. “One of the Faceless?”
“No. Vaka-te-nok. The Mouth Beneath the Earth.”
The others exchanged glances. Forlo shook his head, and Shedara shrugged. Eldako, however, caught his breath. “This Vaka,” he said. “Is it a large beast, black, with many tentacles around a great, snapping beak? Does it wait for its prey beneath the leaves?”
“They dwell in your woods as well, I see,” Le-nekh said. “They are abominations, bred by the Maws in ancient times. There must have been akitu-shai in the north, once.”
Eldako nodded. “Long gone, if so. The Vaka are called winlesh in our land. They are hard to kill. But if you know where one is, it should be easy to avoid. They do not move on their own, after all.”
The cha’asii exchanged glances. Le-nekh scowled.
“Perhaps not in your land,” he said. “Here, though … where the earth is soft.…”
“Can’t we go around?” Shedara asked. “There must be a way.”
Le-nekh shook his he
ad. “Not for many days’ journey. A ravine lies between here and Akh-tazi. It is a hundred miles long, and too broad for trees to cross. The only way is the Bridge of Tears. That is where the Maws and the Vaka await.”
“Then we have no choice,” Forlo said, loosening his blade in its scabbard. “The black moon is nearly full. Maladar is coming.”
“There will be no more secrecy, if we fight,” Hult said. “If what Eldako believes is true, the Maws’ minds all touch one another. If they see us coming, the Faceless will know.”
“Then let them know,” Forlo said. “Let them fear us.”
Shedara held up a hand. “Hang on. We might not be able to hide the fact that we’re coming, but we can keep them from finding out how many we are.” She turned to the scouts. “How many Maws were there?”
They spoke with each other, whispering and gesturing, then one waggled his hand. “Eight, maybe ten. No more than that.”
“Ten,” Eldako said. “If I could still shoot.…”
“Shooting or no, we can handle ten,” Forlo said, cutting him off. “They’re easy to kill, if their minds can’t reach us. And as for this Vaka—”
“Leave that to me,” Shedara said, flexing her hands. She looked at the others, eyebrows raised. “Well? Shall we?”
The Bridge of Tears was a span of black stone, a single crumbling arch webbed with tough vines that, to Hult’s eyes, seemed to be the only thing keeping it from tumbling down into the chasm below. Greenery grew right up to the canyon’s edge, then began again on the far side, trees leaning out over the abyss to grasp at sunlight. Mist and the sound of raging water rose out of the ravine. The river that plunged through the cut was ferocious, nothing but white foam battering jagged rocks.
There were, in fact, nine Maws guarding the span. They stood in groups of three, one on the bridge, the others to either side. They peered this way and that, each group maintaining an eerie rhythm that left no direction unobserved, even for a moment. Their tentacles writhed in silent communion. Hult’s lip curled at the sight of the creatures—so different, so alien from anything he’d ever seen.
